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Belkin, the accessory maker whose products regularly show up in this space, has jumped into the MP3 player market with a line of products that will appeal to the gadget hound who also is a music fan. [To go to the main page for Digital Music Revolution coverage, please click here.]
Moreover, Belkin weighted the base so the device stays planted and will resist tipping over. Those of you who have purchased accessory "caddies" of various kinds over the years will appreciate the value of that. Too often manufacturers deliver plain plastic pieces that topple the minute you bump into them. This one works. Another seemingly obvious feature but one that so often turns out to be a hassle, the DJ slips into place in the cradle without a struggle Belkin adapted the same cradle design for the car as the F8E469-DL Car holder. The iPod version is the F8E467 "TuneDok." Both work with a simple but effective concept: the cradle is attached to a rubber cup that fits in your car's cupholder. Since I regularly perch my player in the cupholder anyway, this approach makes good sense to me. For Dell, Belkin is offering a line of "PureAV" cables: a Y splitter to
let you connect two headphones to the player and a miniplug to RCA cable so
you can connect the DJ to a stereo system. Nothing breakthrough here, but
they are nice, hefty cables that are reasonably priced. Another auto accessory is the requisite cigarette lighter power adapter, F8V7058-APL for iPod; F8D0001-DL for the DJ. Note that the iPod version only works with the new "3G" models with the dock connector. Older iPods require a lighter plug to FireWire connection. The "TuneCast" is a FM transmitter that plugs into the Dell (F8V367-DL) or iPod (F8V367-APL) and will connect to your car stereo wireless to an open FM frequency. Alternatively, there are cassette adapters, (iPod: F8V366-APL; Dell: F8V366-DL), which give better fidelity sound but entail running a wire across your car from the player to your cassette player. In both instances, the pieces are the same units but have different color schemes; grey for Dell and white for Apple to match their players. Unfortunately, my sample units did not perform acceptably. The FM transmitter could not break through the background static on my radio while the cassette adapter made a loud rattling sound when running. Those may have been freak problems as Belkin has sold thousands of them. To get away from the limitations of the TuneCast, which will only broadcast to four frequencies, Belkin is developing new transmitter for Apple that can be tuned to anywhere on the FM spectrum. A Dell version is expected to follow. Upcoming parts that are for the iPod only are a voice recorder attachment and a device to let you move pictures from camera flash cards to the iPod hard drive. But as always with accessories, keep an eye on the Belkin, Dell, and Apple web sites as new products are showing up all the time. (c) 2004 Al Gordon. In addition to his computer interests, Al Gordon is a principal in the Boston-area strategic consulting firm, Mary Fifield Associates, www.maryfifieldassociates.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You can reach Al Gordon at:  Return to Top
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This is supplemental information to the article:
Curiously,
it was the lowest tech product in the line that impressed me the most,
Belkin's F8E471-DL Desktop Stand for the Dell DJ. In pictures it looked like
a pretty standard plastic molding that would be of only modest value. In
fact, it was a nicely executed piece that has a cable management pass-though
in back to let you neatly organize the power charger and USB sync
cables into the DJ while it sits on your desktop.